


Kitchen Permission

by gala_apples



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Baking, F/M, M/M, Open Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 02:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard wants to bake with Bandit. Unfortunately he has no idea how to cook. Mikey's more skilled in heckling and eating the dough than helping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kitchen Permission

The way Gerard sees it, pretty soon he’ll have to start baking with Bandit. She’s already interested in how Mom makes dinner. Every time she sees Lindsey break an egg she shouts _me do!_ like it’s her right as a human being to break eggs. As far as he knows Lindsey hasn’t actually given her an egg, but it’s only a matter of time. Bandit grows up more each day, sooner or later she’ll be helping Mommy.

Gerard wants to be able to join. Not just because he wants great memories of time with his daughter, although that’s of course true. The other major component is he won’t have her thinking any 1950’s bullshit abut the kitchen being the woman’s domain. Sure he doesn’t actually know how to cook, each meal is Lindsey’s work, but it’s not because of what’s between their legs. He just never picked it up. That time of ignorance is over. Gerard will just have to learn, to make sure that Bandit doesn’t pick up the wrong ideas.

He’s got an entire bookmarked folder of recipes on his main laptop. Some are non-edible, though non-toxic, just in case. Play-doh and flour based paper mache will spark her creativity. Nearly all of the edible recipes are baked things. Imagining baking bread with her is way cuter than grilling garlic bread. Besides, baking has more for Bandit to do that’s not on a hot element. The idea of her getting hurt because he’s trying to provide her new experiences terrifies Gerard.

Just like he later plans on having the company of his daughter, right now he’s got his brother with him. This isn’t something he wants to try alone. And honestly, their number of successes in the kitchen are probably about the same. Mikey knows even less about cooking than Gerard does. At least _he_ sometimes watches Iron Chef. Mikey’s dumb reality addiction veers more towards House Hunters. If it wasn’t for Frank, then Alicia, he would have starved to death years ago.

When Lindsey gets home they’re still not done, though the oven’s been waiting at the right temperature for about fifteen minutes. She scans the kitchen like a robot with green grid vision. Gerard can practically see the item: bowl, person: Mikey Way headers come up on her mental screen. Her gaze stops on the stove. “You got egg down the element.”

“Yeah,” Gerard agrees.

“That’s my _that’s bad_ tone, Gerard.”

“It’s not going to clog the element is it? Like, block the heat?”

“Don’t be stupid. It’ll burn off.”

Lindsey answers them both. “Yeah, but when it does it’s going to stink.”

Gerard didn’t know that, but he can see how it would be logical. He knows from touring that when food gets set on fire it smells bad. An element is basically an electric spiral of fire. And even if it didn’t make sense, he knows what he has to say anyway. He doesn’t want this to be a fight, so he’s got precisely one speaking option left. “Sorry.”

“You’re going to clean up after you’re done.” It doesn’t sound like a question.

“Yeah, but we’re not going to be done for awhile. We don’t have any cookies in, Gerard isn’t rolling them.”

“Not isn’t. Can’t. They won’t roll.” Gerard tries again. The dough just smears and sticks to his fingers.

“Does it need more flour?”

“I thought we put the four half cups in,” Gerard answers. It was an easy conversion; two cups to four half cups. And they couldn’t have just used the cup measure, it was coated in margarine. The flour would have stuck.

“I dunno, I didn’t count. Were we supposed to?”

Gerard can’t bury his face in his hands because they’re covered in peanut butter mush. He thrusts the bowl at Lindsey. “Can you fix this?”

Lindsey shakes her head. “No. I’m not getting involved with this at all. I totally wash my hands of this. But enjoy. And if it comes up, enjoy each other.” 

“Thanks hon.” Gerard smiles at the offer. Those are his magic words. She’s said them before, around other people. The only one he’s ever used them for is Mikey. Alicia’s not as open. Not that it’s cheating. She knows of it. She just doesn’t want the details. Or any reference at all, really. Which is fine with them. They’re willing to follow whatever rules their wives set, so they can have this.

It just sucks that he has it while Mikey reeks of peanut butter. “Stop eating the dough.”

“How about you start?”

“I don’t like peanut butter.”

“I know that.” And Mikey should. The one time they were sent to a camp, Gerard nearly starved to death. Mikey wasn’t much better, refusing to have the scrambled eggs they served each morning for breakfast. They were pretty non-compliant, for children under ten.

“Then why are you asking?”

“Because I don’t get it. Why are you making peanut butter cookies?”

“Because Linds likes them.”

Mikey looks at the bowl Gerard’s still holding with raised eyebrows. “I don’t think she’s gonna like these.”

“There are no _these_. They won’t fucking roll!”

“Stop having a hissy fit and give it over.”

Gerard gladly hands over the metal bowl. The outside is smeared with handprints of runny dough, Mikey barely gets it back on to the counter without dropping it. But he has a strategy. He’s Tim Gunning it; making it work. He opens the canister and dumps a bunch into the bowl without measuring. A mushroom cloud of flour appears, Mikey coughs and snuffles but otherwise ignores it.

Whereas Gerard had stirred all the ingredients together, only graduating to using his hands once he was ready to roll out cookies, Mikey just plunges his hands in the dough. The flour keeps on clouding up as he kneads, but the more he does the less that seems to stick to his fingers. Within minutes he’s circling his palms on each other, a golf ball’s worth of dough between his hands. He scuttles across the linoleum to drop the first on the tray, then moves back to the counter and bends over the dough again. 

“While you’re standing there and doing nothing, you might as well kiss me.”

“Can you gargle with milk or something first?” Because as much as he wants Mikey, ugh.

“Oh come on.”

Gerard leans over his brother’s bent frame and kisses the top of his head. “That’s as far as you’re getting with your breath smelling like that.”

“Just lemme eat a cookie, then I’ll brush.”

Gerard’s pretty sure Mikey won’t be eating anything, but he agrees. There’s no losing. Either he gets a make out session in twenty minutes, or he gets to watch his little brother gagging on a rancid cookie before he gets to make out. Gerard’s happy either way.


End file.
